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Battle of Garmillas
:For the comparable battle in the original series, see First Battle of Gamilas. The '''Battle of Garmillas was the last battle of the Garmilas-Earth War. Making his final attempt to stop the space battleship Yamato from reaching the planet Iscandar, Leader Abelt Dessler of the Great Garmillas Empire prepared to use all of the empire's available resources--including the planet Garmillas and his own people--against the Earth vessel. Instead, the battle brought an unexpected and sudden end to Dessler's regime. Background For months, Yamato traveled across unknown space to reach the Large Magellanic Cloud and the planet Iscandar, in a desperate bid to save life on Earth from extinction caused by the long war. The Garmillas confronted the battleship with increasing strength and ingenuity, and although imperial forces came close to success on a number of occasions, Yamato and its crew were up to the challenge, destroying a large portion of the empire's military fleet and its interstellar transportation network in the process. They eventually came into contact with members of a Garmillan rebel movement, who provided additional guidance and intelligence. In the company of a rebel military liaison, Lower Storm Leader Melda Dietz, Yamato prepared for the final warp of its one hundred sixty-eight thousand light year voyage, ready to face one more barrier: the planet Garmillas itself, the center of the empire and Iscandar's twin planet ("Messenger of Iscandar", "The Sun Sets on Pluto", "Point of No Return", "Under a Rainbow Sun", "The Planet That We Head For"). Leader Dessler's rule was threatened by the existence of Yamato in a number of ways. Aside from the destruction directly caused by the battleship, it had become a source of inspiration for uprisings on a number of the Garmillas Empire's conquered subject worlds ("Point of No Return"). At the heart of Yamato was an engine based on wave motion energy, an immensely advanced and powerful technology that had secretly been given to an enemy of the empire by Queen Starsha Iscandar. By doing so, Queen Starsha demonstrated her lack of faith in Dessler and his plans for unifying her empire with his own ("Toward a Sea of Stars", "The Planet That We Head For"). Dessler sought to counter her by abducting Princess Yurisha Iscandar from Yamato for his own use. Despite the fact that his soldiers had mistakenly taken a human woman, Lieutenant Yuki Mori, he went ahead and presented her to the Garmillan public as the Third Princess of Iscandar, proof that the final unification had been ratified. Dessler recognized that his political maneuver would not be enough, and Yamato would have to be removed. He arranged for a fleet of Imperial Guard warships to protect the planet Garmillas, and after secretly sharing his strategy for victory with two Imperial Guard officers, director Hydom Gimleh and Colonel Harz Lecter, he waited for the Earth ship's arrival, with Mori at his side as an observer ("Under a Rainbow Sun", "The Planet That We Head For"). The Battle Charging Garmillas Members of the Yamato crew don full spacesuits before warping to the Salezar system. The ship takes position behind the fifth planet, the ringed gas giant Epidora, to hide its presence. The initial calm is quickly shattered by a wave motion gun firing from a position between Garmillas and Iscandar across interplanetary space toward Yamato ("The Planet That We Head For"). The chief navigator has just enough time to react and the beam streaks past the ship--inflicting minimal damage on its port side--and strikes Epidora, blasting part of the planet's mass into space and causing the rest to collapse. Admiral Juzo Okita realizes that Yamato cannot win so far away from their adversary, and orders the ship to head for Garmillas at full sub-light speed to avoid another wave motion gun attack. After dismissing Mori and her guard, Corporal Norren Oshetto, Dessler learns that Yamato survived. He orders Defense Minister Welte Talan aboard the Baleras II space station to make quick repairs to the Dessler Cannon, the Garmillan wave motion gun, which was damaged by its firing. Yamato briefly slows as it approaches the planet to deploy its Cosmo Falcon fighter squadron and one of its Cosmo Zero fighters, which engage the Imperial Guard's ''Polmeria'' class carriers and Melanka fighters. Director Gimleh orders five battle cruisers to break away from their formation near Baleras II and pursue Yamato as it continues rocketing toward Garmillas. The battleship continues down into the atmosphere, through one of the massive gaps in the planetary crust and above the skyline of the capital city, Baleras. Four of the Imperial Guard pursuers are destroyed by Yamato's shock cannons, and another is rammed and crushed by the ship's wave motion shield. With its path now clear, Yamato charges toward Dessler's palace. Protected by its shield, it crashes through the walls and comes to rest lodged in the palace's upper floors, at the very heart of the empire and near its leader's center of power. Just a moment later, another vessel launches out of the palace and heads toward the safety of outer space: the core of the flagship Desura II, leaving behind nearly all of Dessler's high command and taking away Dessler himself, along with Mori and Corporal Oshetto on a lower level of the ship. A Rite of Passage Aboard the Yamato bridge, tactical division head Susumu Kodai is preparing to lead a strike team into the palace to rescue Mori when Princess Yurisha senses Mori's presence on Desura II. The plan is changed, and Okita orders Kodai and Yurisha to launch in a fighter to retrieve her from the flagship. As the pair fly in a Cosmo Zero out of the atmosphere, they are pursued by DWG262 Czvarke Astro Combat Fighters and DMB87 Snuka dive bombers--and are saved by another Czvarke fighter, flown by Lower Storm Leader Dietz. She is joined by planes piloted by Yamato Lieutenant Saburo Kato and Ensign Akira Yamamoto after the Cosmo Falcon squadron has eliminated the Imperial Guard carriers and fighters. The trio escort Kodai and Yurisha until their Zero is clear of the planet's orbit. Minister Talan and station technicians watch as the Desura II core ship remotely takes control of station functions and decouples a sixty million ton industrial sector from Baleras II, sending it on a collision course with Garmillas. After the core ship docks with the main vessel birthed inside the station, Talan goes to the bridge and pleads with his leader for an explanation. Dessler explains that with Yamato now cornered on the surface of the planet, he will use the station module to obliterate it. The palace, the city of Baleras, and the entire population will be destroyed along with the alien ship, but Dessler calls it a "rite of passage" into a new era in which Baleras II will become the capital of his unified Garmillan and Iscandarian empire. Aboard the Imperial Guard flagship Kilmenaim, Director Gimleh cheers the public broadcast of Dessler's master plan, while in the palace, an enraged Vice Leader Redoff Hiss assumes command and orders an immediate evacuation The Yamato crew determines that the incoming module will hit in minutes, and Admiral Okita orders Yamato's wave motion gun to fire on it, since it is the only weapon that could counter such a massive object. The ship launches rocket anchors into the palace for stability as the gun is targeted and fired. The blast vaporizes the module in an explosion that is visible to Hiss and many other Garmillans in the capital. Defeat from Within Undeterred, Dessler orders the fully repaired Dessler Cannon to be charged once again. He pays no attention to Talan's horror at what he is about to attempt against his own people and calmly targets the palace below. However, they are unaware that Mori had already convinced Oshetto to find and sabotage the wave motion engine powering the weapon after Dessler's previous attempt to cause mass destruction. Wearing stolen spacesuits, they locate the engine controls, at which point Oshetto surprises Mori by holding her at gunpoint and forcing her into an airlock, claiming that he plans to reveal her treachery to Dessler. Instead of holding her in the airlock, he opens the outer door, causing an explosive decompression that sends Mori flying through one of Baleras II's docking bays and into space, tumbling ever further away from the station. Oshetto then proceeds to send the engine into overload. Before Dessler can fire, alarms signaling major malfunctions all across the station go off. Talan yells a desperate order to Colonel Lecter to warp the flagship away at the very instant before explosions fill the docking bay holding the flagship. The blasts consume all of Baleras II, and wipe out most or all of the Imperial Guard warships that had been defending the station. : Mori observes the explosions from a safe distance. Despite severe damage caused by the blast to their Cosmo Zero, Kodai and Yurisha are able to locate and retrieve her ("One Man's War"). : Aftermath With the fight suddenly over, Yamato extricates itself from the imperial palace and completes the last step of its journey to Iscandar. Upon arriving, Queen Starsha informs the crew that she now sees humanity as a grave danger for building and using a wave motion weapon, and refuses to deliver the promised Cosmo Reverse System that can save the dying Earth. However, she is eventually convinced to see that the weapon was used to defend life and not out of aggression. Admiral Okita gives his approval for the Yamato's wave motion gun components to be removed and replaced with the Cosmo Reverser itself before the ship sets sail for home. In exchange, Starsha offers a treaty between her world and the Earth Federation that prohibits the construction of wave motion weaponry. The Garmillas Empire also becomes a signatory to the treaty ("The Distant Promised Land", Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark). Admiral Okita suffers a debilitating attack from his planet bomb syndrome, a chronic illness that was exacerbated by the stress of combat. Although he is able to continue issuing orders for the remainder of the battle, he never returns to full strength, and he is forced to increasingly withdraw from his role as commanding officer ("One Man's War", "The Distant Promised Land", Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark, "The Forever War", "Memories of the Blue Planet"). No trace of Dessler or his vessel is found and no communication is received from him, and the empire is left to assume that he was killed in the explosion of Baleras II. Vice Leader Hiss acts immediately in response to Yamato's defense of Garmillas from its own ruler and declares an end to the war with humanity. Leaders of the rebellion against Dessler's regime eventually step into the power vacuum and become part of a transitional government. The new peace allows for the empire to eventually establish formal diplomatic relations with the Earth Federation and to fight side-by-side with Earth forces against a common threat, the Gatlantis Empire ("The Distant Promised Land", Space Battleship Yamato 2199: Odyssey of the Celestial Ark, "[[AD 2202 - Revive, Space Battleship Yamato|AD 2202 - Revive, Space Battleship Yamato]]", ""Tension – Reach the Embassy on the Moon"). In fact, Dessler's flagship was able to warp away just in time to escape destruction. Dessler works in secret over the following months to make contact with Major General Gremdt Goer and gain the support of thirty Garmillas warships that refuse to recognize the new government. He and his forces make their way to Balun and await the arrival of Yamato, in order to capture the battleship and use it to regain power ("The Forever War"). Gimleh was able to escape the destruction of the station and his Imperial Guard fleet and go into hiding ("Farewell, Teresa! Flowers for Two Desslers"). Gallery Image:Epidora destruction.png|Epidora is no more. Image:Imperial Guard Polmeria launch fighters.png|Imperial Guard Melanka fighters fly into battle. Image:Yamato Battle of Garmillas Baleras.png|''Yamato'' is pursued by the Imperial Guard above the Garmillan capital. Image:Yamato Rams Imperial Guard.png|Smashing through the the Imperial Guard's defense of the city. Image:Hiss Watches Yamato Garmillas Palace.png|Watching Yamato from inside the royal palace. Image:Cosmo Zero at Battle of Garmillas.png|Kodai counterattacks loyal fighters defending Garmillas. Category:Garmillas-Earth War Category:Events (2199) Category:Battles (2199)